Beautiful
by Maureen Painted Green
Summary: Beauty is subjective. HouseCameron.


_**Beautiful**_

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Sitting in his office chair that night was the only thing that kept her breathing. His tennis ball gripped tightly in her hands and his iPod in ears, serenading her with little pieces of him. His GameBoy lay on the desk, along with an empty bottle of Vicodin. The rain fell outside the window, a torrential downpour. She could smell his scent as she buried herself in his chair, taking everything she could get. This was the moment that finally broke her.

He was gone. Gone away forever, never coming back. He'd lived by his own terms, and ironically died by them. Fifty years old, and he'd never once felt loved. Fifty years and the only thing he'd ever lived for was an idea.

He was brilliant, a legend to the world, but worthless to himself. Revered and respected, but hated and feared. He knew things no one else ever would, but he paid a price. His genius ultimately cost him everything else. He hadn't lived a beautiful life, or even anything remotely close. And yet, there was beauty. In the heartbreak, there was hope.

He was a fascinating man. He hated people, detested everything they stood for, but his undoing was that he was like them. Even he was not infallible. It started with his leg and ended with his liver. Years of Vicodin abuse had ruined his body. He was going to die, they told him. Slowly and painfully, hooked up to machines. That's when he had run.

It had been late. All the streetlights were out. The neighbors' pounding music had long ago stopped, and all the nighttime noises were silent when he came. He stood there as she opened the door and let his gaze pierce her. He stared straight into her eyes for the first time she could remember.

"It was you." He whispered. "All along." And then, almost like a whisper, he kissed her. Kissed her in a way that made her knees weak and her head spin. Held her roughly in his arms as hers encircled his neck. He kissed her with finality. Just that one kiss and he had pulled away.

"I'm sorry." He whispered as he left.

An empty bottle of Vicodin lay beside him, when she entered his apartment and she didn't have to do a tox screen to know that he had decided to take his own life. He was too strong to die slowly, surrounded by machines. He fulfilled his life's grace by ending his time on Earth on his own terms. He looked up at her and with his last few breaths, asked her to hold his hand while he died.

"I love you." He whispered, and cried a single tear for the first time in so many years. She felt her heart shatter as he said those words, and knew it would never again be repaired.

"I love you too." She told him. She felt his labored breathing ease as she admitted to him the burden she'd carried for so long. She felt his pulse stop, saw his eyes close. Breathing in his scent, she laid down on the floor next to him and held his still-warm body in her arms.

They arrived shortly after she awoke, and that was when she had left him. She'd retreated to his hideaway, his workplace, his obsession. She'd climbed into his chair and let his scent wash over her, let the wracking sobs consume her. Her heart ached at the sight of this room, because it was him. She could feel him here, so close to her, but unable to reach her. She needed him so badly that she was afraid her heart would tear out of her chest. He was here, in every puzzle that he'd solved, in every life that he'd saved. In every fiber of the carpet beneath her feet. He was inside her, deep within her very heart, and she knew that a single piece of him would survive as long as she lived.

She cried many tears that night, over the future she'd dreamed of having with him. She crumbled into tiny pieces, but she still couldn't disappear. There had never been a way to hide from Gregory House. Her tears subsided, as she ran out of water to cry.

Then the memories started. For the first time since his death, she could see him. She saw him in the diagnostics room with his favorite red coffee mug, outlining the symptoms of a case with the whiteboard marker. She saw him arguing with Cuddy, hiding from Clinic Duty, and playing air guitar. She saw him at his desk, the oversized tennis ball bouncing off the wall as he tried to figure out a case, and it brought tears to her eyes. In all its ugliness, his life had been beautiful.

And as she wrapped herself in his old coat, as she filled his favorite mug with steaming coffee and sipped quietly from it. As she listened to his iPod and grabbed his keys to lock up after her, she could feel him around her. He was here, just as much as she was. This place would always be his, filled with his commanding presence and decorated with his brilliance. As she walked through the door that separated her from the rest of the world, she finally understood him completely, and it was in that moment that his life was fulfilled. For what is a genius without someone to remember their name and their story, in its entirety?

As she left the hospital for her own apartment, she could see him following, always just one step behind. She felt his presence with her and knew that presence would never leave. She smelled him on the air that whipped by, and she could hear him walking right beside her. She closed her eyes as she listened to the beautiful sound of his walking, and in that moment, knew that she would never be alone. Step-thump. Step-thump.


End file.
